Parent seeks to ban ‘Brave New World’ from Seattle schools

Update: The Seattle School Board voted to postpone its decision about banning the book Wednesday evening, citing insufficient time to deliberate. The board will revisit the issue at a later meeting.

At a Seattle School Board meeting Wednesday night, a concerned parent will petition for a ban on Aldous Huxley’s classic book “Brave New World.”

Sarah Sense-Wilson is the mother of a student at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle’s Lake City neighborhood. She’s seeking to ban the book from being taught in classrooms after her daughter was offended by the reading assignment.

The book is about a futuristic civilization where genetically engineered people live lives of mindless consumption, contrasted with so-called “savages” who — among other things — give birth through biological means and read books.

KUOW reports that Sense-Wilson’s daughter was offended by the satire from 1932, specifically the way Huxley’s characters talked about the savages.

“They left having an image of Indian people as being criminals,” she said when interviewed on KUOW. “That we’re to be feared. That we’re scary. That we hold these ceremonies that are animalistic and brutal and violent.”

Huxley’s intent was to show how unnatural and unsightly the genetically engineered society had become. But Sense-Wilson said students in her daughter’s class were only able to grasp a more simplified interpretation of how the native people are depicted.

She’ll have 10 minutes to make her case to the school board Wednesday night.

The book has already been removed from the reading lists a Nathan Hale due to Sense-Wilson’s complaints. The school board could determine if a district-wide ban is appropriate.

The book was also the subject of a controversy in the Coeur d’Alene School District in Idaho, where some complained about the book’s sexual content. The district voted to allow the book to be taught in schools.
KUOW reports this is “the first time anyone at the district can remember a book challenge going this far.”